was a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

located in the of Shinobu District,

Fukushima may refer to: Japan * Fukushima Prefecture, Japanese prefecture ** Fukushima, Fukushima, capital city of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan ***Fukushima University, national university in Japan *** Fukushima Station (Fukushima) in Fukushima, Fukushim ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. On January 1, 1964 it was annexed into the city of Fukushima and is now a neighborhood within the city. As of December 2018, the neighborhood had an estimated

population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...

of 5,977. The area is commonly referred to as Iizaka Onsen due to its many

onsen In Japan, are the country's hot springs and the bathing facilities and traditional inns around them. As a volcanically active country, Japan has many onsens scattered throughout all of its major islands. There are approximately 25,000 hot ...

, most notably Sabakoyu Onsen, a public bath located downtown and reminiscent of similar onsen of the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

. Iizaka is one of the most famous onsen towns in the

Tōhoku region The , Northeast region, or consists of the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. This traditional region consists of six prefectures (''ken''): Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, and Yamagata. Tōhoku retains a ...

with over 70 hotels and

ryokan A is a type of traditional Japanese inn that typically features ''tatami''-matted rooms, communal baths, and other public areas where visitors may wear yukata and talk with the owner. Ryokan have existed since the eighth century A.D. du ...

along the banks of the Surikami River devoted to the enterprise. The ruins of Otori Castle, built by the Sato family, (lords of Iizaka) in the 12th century and Ioji Temple are also located in Iizaka. Ioji Temple contains a "kuyo-to", a vertical slab stone monument, which has been declared an Important Prefectural Cultural Asset. The castle grounds are now a park. Ioji Temple was founded by Kōbō-Daishi, the founder of the Buddhist

Shingon file:Koyasan (Mount Koya) monks.jpg, Shingon monks at Mount Koya is one of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asia, originally spread from India to China through traveling monks suc ...

sect, in 827. A

Yakushi Nyorai Bhaiṣajyaguru ( sa, भैषज्यगुरु, zh, t= , ja, 薬師仏, ko, 약사불, bo, སངས་རྒྱས་སྨན་བླ), or ''Bhaishajyaguru'', formally Bhaiṣajya-guru-vaiḍūrya-prabhā-rāja ("Medicine Master ...

(the holy image of Siddhārtha, the founder of Buddhism) made by Kōbō-Daishi has been enshrined inside it.Takeda T., page 78.

Gallery

File:Iizaka, Fukushima.JPG, Iizaka, Fukushima as seen looking west. File:Iizaka, Fukushima Onsen Hotels.JPG, Onsen hotels in downtown Iizaka

Notes

References

External links

Fukushima official website
with reference to the population)

with reference to Iizaka) {{fukushima Dissolved municipalities of Fukushima Prefecture Spa towns in Japan